Rate My Professor Sascha Fuller

Dr Sascha Fuller is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, at the University of Newcastle, Australia. An environmental anthropologist and development practitioner, she possesses over 15 years of research and field experience across the Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, Nepal, and Mexico. In her role as coordinator of the University of Newcastle's Pacific Node, administered by the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources in partnership with the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP), Fuller plays a pivotal role in advancing the university's international engagement strategy in the Pacific, focusing on enhancing community resilience and sustainability. She holds a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Sydney and a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Newcastle. Her research, allocated 60% to environmental anthropology and 40% to anthropology of development, centers on human-environment relations, plastics pollution, climate change, and their intersections with gender, human rights, and development assistance, particularly concerning risks and opportunities for rural and regional livelihoods.

Fuller has received numerous awards, including the 2018 ANSA Travel Grant Award, the 2012 Australian Anthropological Society Robyn Wood Travel Grant, the 2012 Ben Sanford Cullen Award Research Scholarship from the University of Sydney, the 2007 Faculty Medal in Sociology/Anthropology from the University of Newcastle, and the 2008 Architectural Science Association Best Research Paper Award. Her key publications include "Plastics pollution as waste colonialism in Te Moananui" (2022), "The Strengths and Weaknesses of Pacific Islands Plastic Pollution Policy Frameworks" (2021), "Women and climate change in Vanuatu, Pacific Islands Region" (2023), "Capacity and capability of remote sensing to inform invasive plant species management in the Pacific Islands region" (2024), "Human-buffalo conflicts and intimacies in ‘modernising’ Nepal" (2021), and "Education, gender, and generational change: The transformation of dowry in village Nepal" (2020). Fuller's work has significant impact, facilitating networks and knowledge brokerage across the Pacific for plastic pollution policy, contributing to the Pacific Regional Declaration on the Prevention of Marine Litter and Plastic Pollution, the Scientists’ Declaration on plastic pollution, and UN Environment Assembly negotiations toward a global plastics treaty. She supervises PhD and Honours students on invasive species management, coral reef ecosystem resilience, and compliance with the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, and co-developed five factsheets on plastics pollution prevention in the Pacific Region.